


This, Your All-Licensed Fool

by hauntedlittledoll



Series: Tumblr Fic War [12]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman Incorporated (Comics), Batman and Robin (Comics), Teen Titans (Animated Series)
Genre: Gen, Literary References for the Win, Shakespeare is My Second Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-30
Updated: 2013-12-30
Packaged: 2018-01-06 18:00:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1109889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hauntedlittledoll/pseuds/hauntedlittledoll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for anonymous - "Damian has had sporadic contact with his father during his life, but it has always been strained. Father won’t even call him be name. During one such visit, Drake slips up and tells Damian why: his father disapproves of Damian being recloned when he is inadequate. In fact, he doesn’t consider them the same person, and has mourned each son he’s lost."</p>
            </blockquote>





	This, Your All-Licensed Fool

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from William Shakespeare's "King Lear."

_I am better than thou art now._

_I am a fool._

_Thou art nothing.”_

* * *

Damian hesitated, and immediately wished that he hadn’t.  Indecision was a weakness, and Damian couldn’t afford a weakness.

The older boy may be a pathetic excuse for a sidekick, but even Drake could manipulate any opening that Damian was foolish enough to provide.  Timothy Drake had been trained by the original Batman after all.  Father might not have much to work with when it came to the teenager, but no one could survive the man’s training without demonstrating marked improvement.

What that said for Drake’s original state of incompetence, Damian could not begin to fathom.

"You are lying," Damian countered, aiming for confidence and dismissal.  He heard the tones often enough from his father to mimic them fairly, but there was a third tone to the Batman’s voice that Damian did not need to display—pain.

And all of Drake’s irrational fury and exaggerated offense bled away into the cool, hard, clinical tones of Robin working a case.  “I’m not; you are the fifth clone that we know of, and you won’t be the last.”

Damian was barely ten years old.

"Talia uses it as a weapon against Bruce, but I suspect she’s also looking for something that doesn’t exist.  Perfection is fleeting, and when her current model falls short, she simply starts over."  Tim shrugged.  "As a member of the al Ghul family, Talia does have forever to work it out."

There was no argument to be had there.  The Lazarus Pit would preserve his family to preside over the delicate balance of the world without end.  Damian had only to look at his Grandfather’s many descendants, and the rapid rate in which disfavor removed them from any hope of succession.

Mother was different.  Mother was Ra’s al Ghul’s Abigail, his most beloved child and trusted with the continuation of the family line despite her gender.

Damian had thought himself treasured on such a level, the only son of Talia, the only true son of Batman, heir to a League of Assassins in which he claimed his own rank and a modern day Alexander, according to his mother.

Damian knew that he could never be anything less than perfection; it was clear in his mother’s expectations and his father’s perpetual disappointment.  What Drake described could very well be an unhappy necessity in his mother’s eyes.

But he would not say it aloud to this enemy—not to his father’s chosen son.

"There is a logical fallacy in your hypothesis," he ventured instead, adopting the same voice and tone as the older teenager with perhaps a smidge of condescension.  "I would be unable to recall previous incarnations experiences with cloning technology as it currently stands—I have no such difficulty in remembering your many shortcomings, Drake.  Presuming my mother’s scientists have uncovered further and highly theoretical advances in duplicating personality as well as genetics, I would remember the supposed execution-and-rebirth sequences."

"You’re assuming that she can clone you at your current age," Drake snorted.

The teenager was fully involved now and his hands gestured emphatically as he spoke.  It was one of the few similarities between Grayson and Drake—this useless flailing of limbs to convey abstract meaning.  At least Todd’s violence was purposeful and to the point.

"No, not even Talia can do that, and artificial aging is unreliable.  The Fatherless creation was larger than Bruce, but had the mentality of a toddler.  He had brute strength and nigh-invulnerability to injury, but no finesse.  He was a laughingstock among the ninja and Talia killed him personally."

Damian was silent.  The Fatherless was a fool scarcely whispered about in the League.

"You were twelve the first time Bruce met you," Tim continued.  "So was Dick.  That version was jealous of him—of Robin.  He followed Dick to Titan Tower and adopted the abandoned- identity of Red X to torment him, but Dick swears that they were friends as well as adversaries.  Talia didn’t like that."

Grayson, who still rapidly vacated the premesis every time Damian was dropped off by his Mother, was unaccountably affectionate and concerned when inevitably called upon to rescue Damian and his Mother. He persisted in providing a human shield, discussed video games mid-battle, and was perhaps the most tolerable of Father’s foundlings.

"Bruce never believed the Red X’s story.  The timing never matched up, but he couldn’t argue with the DNA tests they ran after the Red X’s suspicious death.  It hit him hard, and then barely a week after they finished burying the Red X, Talia left a new infant on the steps like some kind of twisted reassurance.  That was when Bruce discovered the cloning process.  Talia took the baby back; but eventually decided that his early contact with Bruce and Dick had corrupted him.  She got impatient then.  As I said, the Fatherless didn’t last a year.  She used smaller jumps in age acceleration after that."  Drake snorted.  "Jason changed your diapers.  He also taught you how to read."

Damian remembered that event dimly.  He remembered being little better than a toddler at the time although chronological time insisted that he would have been six and Drake’s timeline suggested a mere year and a half of age.  Damian remembered Todd leaving much more clearly, and hating Drake on principle.

Todd held such humiliation over his head often enough as he persisted in alternately treating Damian like a very small child or as an obstacle … and an object.  It was a regular point of contention between Grayson’s Batman and the Red Hood, almost as definitive as the rule against killing.

There was a thin line between hero and tyrant, between mother and creator.

"As soon as Dick makes you bearable again, Talia will hit the reset button," Tim asserted bitterly.  "And there’s nothing we can do about it."

"Why does Father not stop her?" Damian asked finally.  His voice is small … even to his own ears.  "He is—was—Batman."

"What could Batman do?" Tim countered.  "No prison will ever hold Talia.  Her father’s organization is far too widespread for that.  Even if Bruce went against his own moral code and killed her, Ra’s would resurrect her via the Lazarus Pit.  Destroy the labs?  Hunt down every source of DNA to permanently end this seemingly infinite circle of hell?  He’s done that.  Twice over.  It always comes down to the current clone—you."

Damian flinched.

"You may not be Bruce’s son, but he still can’t bring himself to kill you," Tim gestured helplessly.  "And so it continues."


End file.
